Finally had a chance to see Zach in action this weekend and it was totally worth the wait. Great movie from start to finish. They don't waste any time getting to the meat of the story. I'm not a huge Pitt fan, but he was mostly believable if you assume he's already seen some crazy stuff in his former life. I thought it was equal parts action and horror right up to the end. You do have to suspend belief at the ending, but I thought it was a crative twist on the Zombie genre and what makes them tick. My favorite part was the rule of 10 in isreal - pretty creative stuff. I'd easily put this on par with IM3 for the Summer blockbusters.

I saw it last weekend too, the day after I finished the book. Even before I went I was pretty much convinced there was no way it would live up to the book, which is understandable, as it is a very expansive story that would be difficult to commit to film. But I walked out wondering why the hell they even bothered in the first place.

They should have just called it 28 Days Later III because it had a hell of a lot more common with that series than pretty much anything in the book. Talk about throwing out the baby with the bath water!

I mean, aside from 1 character's name and brief snippets of the conversation in Israel, this movie was literally unrecognizable as far as its source material.

I don't mean this as a scathing review either. It wasn't all that bad of a movie on its own. I just don't see the point of Brad Pitt waging a bidding war with Leo DiCaprrio over the film rights to then turn around and throw EVERY good thing about that book out the window and create some contrived script that had NOTHING from the book left in it.

First of all, they ruined the zombies. I HATE fast zombies. More contrived Hollywood BS. They don't have to be hyperactive killing machines to be scary, guys!

Second of all, it would have been less of a reach to have simply cast Pitt as the guy collecting all the oral histories, recalling them after the fact. They didn't need all that clutter of a backstory. The rest of the plot was too limited by that.

Third of all, Battle of Yonkers, Chinese sub, Patient Zero, Lobos, etc - you couldn't even pick ONE of the most interesting stories and integrate it?

I like Brad Pitt generally speaking but man, he just effed this one all up I think. It would have worked much better as a 10-12 episode HBO mini-series, or even a full blown series.

It's one thing to adapt something and do it badly, but even worse to adapt something which bears no resemblance to the story it purports to be based on. Ugh.

Maybe Part II will get things back on track, but they've already diverged badly with that whole speedburner zombie motif.

Seconded on fast zombies... they ruin zombie films to me. TWD proves you can work around their speed well enough I think. It's not even a movie I've gone to see because of this and I usually love zombie stuff. To me, making them really fast and super strong cuts away at the whole thing.

If TWD's world were any indication (and they eat animals like on that), eventually they'd starve. They apparently are starving if they don't get food, and go to sleep if not stimulated, so they'd just sleep and re-die I guess?

I'm mixed on the speed zombies. If I had to pick, I'd go old skool slow just because I think the whole point is that there are so many and they are so constant that it's almost more scary. the sense of hoplessness and slow suffication from the masses is the definition of zombies for me. I loved the fast zombies in 28 Days though - they get my heart racing and seem like a much bigger threat individually. I don't mind how they were portrayed here and it fits well with the "animalistic nature" that brings the movie together. I would have preferred slow though and definitely longer infection times. I still don't see how planes were the perfect carrier to spread them if they turn so damn fast.

The movie is definitely a departure from the book, but I'm not sure they could have really made the book and made it interesting in that format. If they went documentary style, you'd either have lengthy flashback scenes or you'd have to put the main character in several of those situations - not ideal either way. I like the idea of a mini-series though - that might offer enough time to really do the book justice.

What they did try to incorporate was the zombie plague on a global scale, which was pretty cool to see. They tied in several countries in a way that made sense and they used the ships to get safe - I liked that. The attraction to sound and bug-like stampedes were pretty impressive as well. In defense of the movie, they also got to a solution in 2 hours, which was an impressive turn considering most zombie stories just leave you hanging. I could see them making a sequel to this, but I don't think it will be any closer to the book than the first one.

Parts of the book I missed most? - the downed pilot lost in the woods talking to on the radio - The battle of Younkers would have been visually spectacular - The slow advance among the population, where most people saw it on the news and still just avoided it or thought it was a hoax. That was a missed opportunity at the beginning of the flick. - The massive forts and reeducation facilities where the working class of society is now the most critical element to survival. - The final push back, where the army figures out how to fight Zack and sweeps back across the country.

I want to see a zombie movie about what happens after they eat all of the humans. Then what?

They made a vampire movie with a similar premise, DAYBREAKERS. I was one of the few who saw it in theaters. Of course, like all vampire ficition, their spin on things was different. Starved vamps become feral bat-like humanoids.

Saw this last night. It was a fine popcorn flick but really not all that special.

I never read the book, so I can't compare it to that, but the movie seemed unnecessarily complicated moving from location to location without really advancing the plot. It really could have happened all in one metro area without impacting the plot.

28 Days Later was far superior to this movie. It was a simple survival movie that was uncomplicated and made you care about the characters. World War Z was pure popcorn. I had hoped for a bit more.

I actually really liked that they had to travel around a bit for the solution. The different locations were a big part of the book, so maybe that connected it more for me. If they had figured out everything in one city I would have been complaining about "what are the chances of all this happening in one place...?) I liked the flight to the source, the concept of the walls in Israel, and the need to find the closest WHO all in different places.